Read to Learn, Not Just for Story

Read daily, for love and for learning.

I’ve always loved to read. My earliest memories involve wonderful, imaginative stories that enriched my life. The Little Red Hen, Johnny-Go-Round, Sendak’s Wild Things, Anderson’s fairy tales, the Bobbsey Twins and Happy Hollisters were all as much a part of my life as was the freeway traffic that flowed endlessly across the street from our home, the railroad at the end of the block, and the liquor store where I bought my weekly treat– a fudgesicle, or if I was feeling flush, a 10-cent Rocket Pop. Every day I’d pack my school bag with at least two books with which to stave off inevitable boredom. Trips to the library or my favorite thrift store were highlights of my week; I knew I’d come home with at least a few more books to cherish.

Perhaps I was an odd little kid, but even then I wasn’t reading only to find out what happened in the story. I read to discover new worlds, different lives, deeper meanings in everyday matters. Read more

Can Learning Go On While Caregiving? Crisis Schooling for Homeschoolers

“Your children may not remember what you do, but they’ll remember how you made them feel.”

Caregiving and homeschooling can work together.

Can learning can go on while you’re cargiving for someone who is elderly or disabled? I want to reassure you that it can, but it will be different from what you might expect. If you can align your expectations with reality, make adjustments that keep you sane, and focus on priorities and essentials, you’ll be able to homeschool while you’re a caregiver. You may not achieve the picture-perfect homeschool you envision, but your family will learn many valuable lessons, and can even thrive.

Be Realistic

The first thing to do is to be realistic. You’ll need to balance the needs of your husband, your children, and yourself with the demands of caregiving. If you’re in a short-term caregiving situation, you can make big, temporary compromises in your focus and survive in the short term. If you’re in a long-term caregiving situation, you’ll need to focus on overall lifestyle changes and enlist help when you need it.

For example, in the last year of my grandfather’s life, we were dealing with his Alzheimer’s disease, my grandmother’s difficult adjustment to living in Virginia, plus four boys, ages 1, 3, 6, and 8. Between having to pack up the boys to go and hunt up “Gampy” when he wandered off (sometimes more than once a day), selling our house and building a new one where the grandparents could live with us, and coping with meals, laundry, and all the varying physical and emotional needs, it was a challenge to get more than the very basics of a math lesson and a bit of writing done. Some days we weren’t even able to do that much. [Read more...] Read more

Carnival of Homeschooling: The Beach Reading Edition

The homeschool carnival makes great beach reading.

I’m delighted to host the June 22, 2010 edition of Carnival of Homeschooling! It may be summer, but homeschoolers never stop thinking and learning. To celebrate the season, let’s imagine that we’re at a lovely beach with waves breaking, a gentle breeze blowing, and palm trees rustling. Now…. relax and read while your dear children build sand castles!

Three Things to Consider When Making Curriculum Decisions

I know that it’s curriculum-choosing time for a lot of you, and after talking with parents at the last two conventions, I wanted to suggest three things to think about before you make any curriculum decisions.

Your student’s learning style
Your household patterns and routines
Your student’s gifts and goals

Your Student’s Learning Style

It’s important to know whether your student learns best by seeing, hearing, or doing. When you work with a student’s learning style, rather than against it, the student will learn more easily and retain a lot more of what he learns. If you are teaching multiple students using one curriculum, adapt it to fit whenever you can. For example, if you have an auditory learner, allow him to sometimes listen to audiobooks, rather than read everything, especially if he needs to read something that is full of challenging ideas, such as classic literature. If you have a kinesthetic (hands-on) learner, look for resources that will actively engage him, such as science with a laboratory component, or literature that requires looking, listening, and doing. Read more

Caregiving for Homeschool Families: Don’t Go Into It Lightly

Homeschool families are notoriously family-friendly, but I’ve recently been hearing questions and concerns about caregiving while homeschooling, so I thought I’d share a few thoughts here. Most of the people who have asked questions have been thinking about their parents or grandparents and have options available other than in-home caregiving, so I’ll mostly address things to consider in deciding whether or not to opt for in-home caregiving.

I was raised by my grandparents, so caregiving arrived early for me. My husband Donald and I cared for my grandfather (actually step-g) from 1989 until he passed on from complications of Alzheimer’s disease in 1993, and have been caring for my grandmother ever since. The observations I’ll share are based on my experiences and those of my caregiving friends during the past couple of decades and may not apply to everyone. Perhaps they’ll help as you consider what might lie ahead for your family.

You Gain

You learn to be flexible and patient.
Your children can become better acquainted with the person you’re caring for, and bless them by helping out.
You learn that people are more important than perfect schedules.
If you’re caring for an elder who is still mentally sharp, you can take the opportunity to learn from them.
You gain friends who understand some of what you’re going through.
You learn that a sense of humor can make an awkward or unpleasant situation bearable.
You learn not to rely on yourself, but on the Lord.

You Lose Read more

The Power of Copying a Text

Charlotte Mason recommended copywork as part of the language arts curriculum, and I second that suggestion. Copying a text is a powerful way, not only to practice writing mechanics, but also to absorb the cadence of an author’s prose, the fluidity of each sentence, and most of all, the deep meaning of the passage. If you want your students to commit anything to memory, the first place to begin is by having them copy it.

I learned the power of copying when I did calligraphy for hire. Writing out a text gave me time to reflect on meaning, prose style, and more. Poetry and verses that I copied have remained with me, even decades later. Copying is a relatively simple activity that can make your student a better writer. I hope you’ll try it!

The power of a text is different when it is read from when it is copied out.

Only the copied text thus commands the soul of him who is occupied with it,

whereas the mere reader never discovers the new aspects of his inner self that are opened by the text,

that road cut through the interior jungle forever closing behind it:

because the reader follows the movement of his mind in the free flight of day-dreaming,

whereas the copier submits it to command.

Walter Benjamin

Homeschool Through High School Workshop Replays

Ultimate Homeschool Expo 2010

Several of you have asked about replays from the Homeschooling through High School workshop I did for Cindy Rushton’s Ultimate Homeschool Expo a couple of days ago, and a few of you wrote that you hadn’t been able to click the link I sent out in e-mail. So here it is on the blog– I’ve even tested it for you!

We had such fun on this call, and there were so many questions at the end that the call lasted almost two hours. We were happy to share so much information about the scary subjects– transcripts, records, college admissions, financial aid, and more. If you were able to be on the call, I hope you were reassured by it all.

If you weren’t able to make it to the live call, Cindy has a page up that will tell you how to access this recording and all the other speakers she’ll be hosting over the next couple of weeks. The UHSE is an amazing online event, and it’s well worth putting on your calendar. You can check it all out at the Ultimate Homeschool Expo homepage.

Learning Styles: Should You Care?

In the How to Homeschool a Boy series you read in previous posts, I talked about some of the things I learned along the way. Perhaps you noticed that there were differences in the things that each boy asked me to share. One asked me to see something interesting he had found (keyword is SEE); another wanted me to see what he had done and watch what he could do with it (keyword is DO); and the other wanted me to hear something that inspired him (keyword is HEAR).

Those keywords correspond to specific learning styles:

See: A visual learner
Do: A kinesthetic (hands-on) learner (often described as “wiggle-worm”)
Hear: An auditory learner (sometimes described as “noisy”)

Hey Mom, Listen to this Great Performance: How to Raise a Boy, Part 3

Saturday’s beautiful weather must have inspired all the boys. Shortly after I came back from checking out the jungle gym (see the previous post), my oldest son Craig, 25, e-mailed me to check out the beautiful performance he’d just found of Franz Lizst’s Christus. He’d posted it as his Facebook status for the weekend, and wanted to make sure I got to enjoy it too.

Here’s what he wrote to accompany it:

“Favorite musical selection for this weekend. Franz Liszt’s amazing oratorio on the life of Christ. I listen to this final section all the time. This is rarely performed and recordings are hard to come by. This is a video I created from my music collection. Please take the time to listen to this music, it can change your life. Have a blessed weekend.”

He posts a favorite classical music section almost daily. If you click to read all the information he included with this video, you’ll find an overview of the oratorio, the artists, and finally the words to this particular piece, plus links to more information. If you want to learn more about classical music, he’s a good person to know.

Guess what? I didn’t teach him all this. I didn’t teach him how to listen to and understand classical music; how to discern small differences that make one performance superior to another; or how to transfer music from a CD to a video that could go into YouTube (he actually considers himself a techno-klutz, with fairly good reason).

All we did was provide access to the family stereo with the radio dial set to NPR, plus Music and Moments with the Masters tapes and Beethoven Lives Upstairs and others in that series. When we asked what he wanted for his 14th birthday, he requested the audio course, How to Listen to and Understand Great Music with Robert Greenberg, published by The Teaching Company. He listened to it repeatedly, and for each subsequent birthday asked for and received other Teaching Company courses on music, history, literature, philosophy, and government.

Oh, and we also gave him the time and freedom to listen, learn, and then explore what he wanted to learn more about. We tried to make sure none of his brothers teased him about singing audibly, and as one result, he’s currently preparing for an April 18 recital of tenor arias (you’re welcome to come if you’re in Central Virginia). He also sings in the Central Virginia Masterworks Chorale, along with our youngest son (you met him in the snake story a couple of days ago) and enjoys playing tenor roles in our local opera company.

You’re probably beginning to discern a common theme in this How to Raise a Boy series. Let your boys be who they are. Give them all the time, space, freedom, and love you possibly can, and don’t spend your life saying “quiet!” and “don’t.” Craig led many woodland forays, got dirty with the best of them, and yet, his love of music and history has always defined him. If he had to wait for me to learn it all and teach him, he wouldn’t know a fraction of what he knows.

Children have nearly unlimited time to learn things quickly while their interest is hot, and if you can provide resources and time, chances are they’ll learn way more than you’ll ever teach them. It may not be on a topic you’d choose, but they need to be able to explore what really interests them so they will know themselves and their unique gift and calling when they reach adulthood. An overly regimented child is less likely to really know what he enjoys, or where his true skills lie. Even though it may seem counter-intuitive, doing less with them is often better than doing more. Children are people too, and they need time and space to become who they were meant to be.

*Note: This series of posts is presented, not in a spirit of “I did it all right,” because no one knows better than I how many things I didn’t do right, but in a spirit of encouragement. I share them because I wish you joy. I also want to encourage you that you can take this opportunity to discipline your own irrational fears so that you won’t pass them on to your children. “For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of self-control.” II Timothy 1:7.

Hey Mom, Want to See My Jungle Gym? How to Raise Boys, Part 2

As I mentioned in the previous post, Saturday was a beautiful day. We had a wonderful time doing indoor/outdoor projects. Toward evening, our third son, 20, invited me to come see the new jungle gym he’d built for himself. I’d seen the scale drawing he’d done in Google SketchUp (a delightful free resource), so I was eager to see how it had turned out.

The jungle gym design in Google SketchUp.

We walked down to where he’d built it, and to say I was impressed was an understatement. It’s huge. He demonstrated what each portion of it was for, with plenty of heart-stopping moments. He’s into a sport called parkour, and this is an excellent training spot. Here is a photo of the completed project in place, and a photo of Bryan walking on one of the poles. I tried it, and let’s just say that “results may vary.”

The completed jungle gym.

Bryan walking on the poles. He can walk all the way across.

What boy-raising lesson can you glean from this project?

Your sons will teach themselves amazing things if you give the time and space to learn what they can do.

Trust me, I didn’t discover SketchUp or parkour, and I’d have never thought of salvaging a bunch of old pipes and fittings to make a jungle gym. I didn’t even show him how to use my camera, take these photos (including the timed one of himself on the bars), or how to upload them into his computer, then transfer them to mine. He has discovered all this on his own over the past 20 years.

It takes a boy with a boy’s interests to find the thread of an idea and follow it through to the creation of a project he really enjoys. The key ingredient is free time and the liberty to explore, try new things, and yes– get hurt occasionally. It takes trusting that if you provide time, tools, and skills, they will use them. It also takes understanding that education is about a whole lot more than doing school.

Our boys roamed through our patch of woods with sticks and homemade spears, bows and arrows, and wooden guns. These evolved into real bows and arrows and AirSoft guns eventually, but the one rule was that they must never shoot at or near a living creature. They built forts and treehouses, dug trenches, climbed trees, played in the creek, collected rocks, built campfires and played outside—all with a minimum of fuss. They even (gasp!) got dirty.

This was not because because I had great tomboy credentials (if any of my childhood friends are reading this, it will probably be awhile before they rejoin us– they’re probably laughing themselves silly at the thought). It wasn’t because I knew everything about raising boys (I was raised by my grandparents, so no brothers). It wasn’t even because I thought a lot about it.

It was mostly because I just remembered my own childhood, and knew that I enjoyed trying things and being free to climb into the avocado tree or onto the garage roof with a book. I grew up in southern California, so there was rarely a reason to be inside during daylight, and I loved being outside as much as possible. I remembered the joy of being trusted by my grandfather to try all sorts of interesting things, and the utter frustration of hearing too frequent “Be careful!” cautions from my grandmother.

Of course, there are always boundaries that must be established, and they will vary depending on where you live. Our boys were able to roam with a fair amount of freedom, and sometimes they crossed boundaries. Sometimes they did things they weren’t supposed to do. But overall, allowing them to develop their own interests while learning their physical limitations worked well for them. Because they learned how to use their physical skills, and they understood from a realistic basis of experience what they physically could and could not do, they’ve had a very low broken-bone count. Three of them have broken a collarbone while playing sports, and if I recall correctly, that’s all. Not a bad price to pay for confidence, creativity, and coordination!

So, love those boys and trust them to try things. When they learn the possible, they can begin to tackle the impossible, and who knows what they’ll accomplish?

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